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EU condemns Turkey’s Twitter ban

Turkey’s decision to ban the social networking site Twitter was today condemned by the European commissioners in charge of enlargement and of the digital agenda.

Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for enlargement, said he was “gravely concerned” by the block imposed on Twitter by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yesterday.

Erdoğan announced at a rally that the government had a court order to block the site, and hours later users began experiencing disruptions.

“The international community will say this and that, and it doesn’t concern me one bit,” Erdoğan told supporters. “They will see the power of the Turkish Republic. This has nothing to do with ‘freedom-shmeedom’. Freedom is not invading someone’s privacy.”

The government has said that it has no plans to block other social networking sites such as Facebook. Protests against Erdoğan’s government last year were largely organised via Twitter.

“The ban on the social platform Twitter.com in Turkey raises grave concerns and casts doubt on Turkey’s stated commitment to European values and standards,” said Füle. “Freedom of expression, a fundamental right in any democratic society, includes the right to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority.”

“Citizens must be free to communicate and choose freely the means to do it. This obviously includes access to the internet.”

Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for the digital agenda, went further. “The Twitter ban in Turkey is groundless, pointless and cowardly,” she said in a tweet. “Turkish people and the international community will see this as censorship. It is.”

A statement from the Turkish prime minister’s office said the site is being blocked because Twitter had ignored court orders demanding the removal of certain web links from the site.

Turkey has been a candidate to join the European Union since 1987. However, accession talks have moved at a glacial pace since then, and several member states maintain that Turkey should never be a full member of the EU. Concerns have been raised about the country’s human rights record and commitment to democracy, as well as the feasibility of the EU absorbing a population that will soon be larger than that of Germany.